Dead Voice: Law, Philosophy, and Fiction in the Iberian Middle Ages PDF
Preview Dead Voice: Law, Philosophy, and Fiction in the Iberian Middle Ages
DEAD VOICE .................19344$ $$FM 07-18-1915:27:26 PS PAGEi THEMIDDLEAGESSERIES RuthMazoKarras,SeriesEditor EdwardPeters,FoundingEditor Acompletelistofbooksintheseries isavailablefromthepublisher. .................19344$ $$FM 07-18-1915:27:26 PS PAGEii DE A D VOIC E LAW, PHILOSOPHY, AND FICTION IN THE IBERIAN MIDDLE AGES Jesús R. Velasco .................19344$ $$FM 07-18-1915:27:27 PS PAGEiii Copyright!UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedfor purposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneofthisbook maybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithout writtenpermissionfromthepublisher. Publishedby UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia,Pennsylvania- www.upenn.edu/pennpress PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper ACataloging-in-PublicationrecordisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress ---- .................19344$ $$FM 07-18-1915:27:28 PS PAGEiv Celivreestde´die´ a` Aure´lieVialetteeta` MiguelVelascoVialette Notallthingsareblest,butthe seedsofallthingsareblest. Theblessingisintheseed. Thismoment,thisseed,thiswaveofthesea, Thislook,thisinstantoflove. —MurielRukeyser .................19344$ $$FM 07-18-1915:27:28 PS PAGEv .................19344$ $$FM 07-18-1915:27:28 PS PAGEvi Introduction One.DeadVoice Two.VernacularJurisdiction Three.RevenantManuscripts Four.LegislatingFriendship Five.SensitiveSouls Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments .................19344$ CNTS 07-18-1915:27:30 PS PAGEvii .................19344$ CNTS 07-18-1915:27:30 PS PAGEviii This book is an investigation into the methods, decisions, and theoretical perspectives that underpin the creation and writing of an all-encompassing legal code, the Siete Partidas (Seven Parts), although it is not an exhaustive study of that code.1 It is, rather, an examination of some of the code’s tech- nologies and techniques of codification. In that sense, it opens up a larger conversation with the theories and techniques of legal codification in other languagesandculturesduringtheMiddleAgesandbeyond.Ultimately,this bookisastudyofthequestionofwhat itmeanttocodifylawintheMiddle Agesandwhatproblemsthisquestiongavebirthto,alongwiththetechnical strategiesthatlawgiversandlawscholarsofferedtoresolvethoseissues. These techniques and theories of codification fall under the notion that gives the title to this book, dead voice. As we will see in more depth in Chapter , “dead voice” is an expression used by many theologians and law- yers during the long Middle Ages and was introduced by Alfonso himself intothetextoftheThirdPartida,Prologue.2Theexpression(voxmortua, inLatin)mayrefertomanydifferentaspectsoflegalwriting,anditisalways set in opposition to some sort of oral witnessing, or living voice—a kind of oralwitnessingthatseemstohaveappearedduringthefirstorsecondcentury of the Common Era.3 Procedural lawyers and law scholars used vox mortua torefertowritteninstruments,andAlfonsoenhanceditinawaythatI find particularly productive. As I will argue in this book, this enhanced concept of dead voice as a means of regulating legal writing at both the normative and the documentary levels will give us access to larger issues in the process oflegalcodification.Forinstance,thislegalcodificationproductivelyutilizes fictional devices, establishes legal temporalities, gives birth to a specific form of legal subject, and includes a legal rationality based on philosophical cor- pora. Dead voice is the gravitational center and the general name I give to someofthosetechniquesandtheoriesofcodification. .................19344$ INTR 07-18-1915:27:34 PS PAGE1 Introduction One could think of the Siete Partidas as a constitutional code that was intended to present a theory of power and the rules according to which all other rules must arise. Alfonso inscribed this theory of power in and as the legal system itself, so that legislation, codification, and power theory cannot beseparatedfromoneanother.Thecodealsoincludesafullsetoflawsofall the branches of ecclesiastic and secular legislations, both public and private. In that sense, it is a code that mainly contains canon, administrative, proce- dural, civil, and penal law and legislates across these legal divides. As part of its legislative impulse, it also regulates its own legal science—its philosophy and theory of law. Again, these theoretical elements are part of both the legal text and the act of codification. Such complex codification required an innovativearchitecture.4 The main characteristic of such architecture was a technical tour de force—that is, in its use of the vernacular. The Siete Partidas appeared in a world in which vernacular legal writing was chiefly reserved for local regula- tions, whereas legal science and codification normally ran in transpolitical (that is, crossing different polities), arguably universal, languages (Latin, Hebrew,andArabic).5Thelegislatordecidedtocodethelawinavernacular whose legal vocabulary and systems of expression were technically limited. Only certain kinds of legal objects had been previously articulated by this vernacular legal language, including private acts taking place in relatively Latinatevernacularexpressions.AcrosstheIberianPeninsula,somefueros,or local regulations, as well as charters regarding the foundation or population ofatown orcity(cartaspueblas),customary lawinCastileandAragon,legal responses, or even the proceedings of cortes (the itinerant meetings between thekingortheregentandtheotherordersofsociety)wereindeedpublished inthevernacularfromthelatetwelfthcenturyonward.Likewise,theimpor- tant compilation of Visigothic law known as the Liber Iudiciorum, or Lex Visigothorum, was translated during the first third of the thirteenth century undertheruleofFerdinandIII(r.–)astheFueroJuzgo.Thevernac- ularroyalchancerystartedduringthekingdomofAlfonsoVIII(r.–), tobloomonlyduringthekingdomofAlfonsoX(r.–).6 Despite its vernacular articulation and unlike the local examples given above,andalsocontrarytotheideathatsomescholarsofRomanlaw,includ- ingManlioBellomo,haveentertained,theSietePartidaswasnotintendedto beadocumentoflocallegalsignificancebutratheronethatwouldinaugurate a new kind of universalization—and therefore a new thesis on transpolitical empire.7 The Siete Partidas, indeed, were born in the juncture of three .................19344$ INTR 07-18-1915:27:34 PS PAGE2
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